Just How Many Climate "Sceptics" Are There?

Just How Many Climate "Sceptics" Are There?

WHEN Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that former Woodside gas company executive and lobbyist Gary Gray was Australia’s new energy and resources minister, questions turned quickly to his position on climate change.

For the record, Gray told journalists that he was a reformed sceptic and now accepted that humans were influencing the climate. Gray’s publically stated view puts him with the majority of Australians.

But regular readers of The Australian newspaper, or the many columnists in the News Ltd press might think the country is awash with scepticism.

“The media will often report on what the public thinks about climate change – and they are getting it wrong,” says Professor Joseph Reser, of Griffith University’s School of Psychology, who has led one of the most extensive and detailed surveys into Australian attitudes to climate change and the underpinning science.

After asking 7,500 Australians about their attitudes to climate change and their acceptance that humans are having something to do with it, Reser says the vast majority of people accept the science – it’s happening and humans have a hand in it.

Several studies have pointed out just how difficult it can be to get a true picture of the general public’s view on climate change. Not to mention how people’s economic views – such as support for the free market – or political views are closely aligned with their views on climate change.

A USstudy earlier this year found that, not surprisingly, members of the public and the media tend to be more sceptical about global warming if you ask them during a cold snap. Another US study last year found that asking people about global warming during a hot spell could increase the number of “believers” by almost six percentage points. One study has even found that people were more likely to accept the science on global warming if they were sitting close to dead plants.

The Lowy Institute annually polls opinions about climate change. The number of people saying Australia shouldn’t act “until we are sure that global warming is a problem” rose from seven per cent in 2006 to 18 per cent in 2012.

Surveys by The Climate Institute in 2012 found 69 per cent of people attribute climate change to a combination of natural and human causes – a position on the science relatively close to reality. In the US, a new Gallup survey finds 57 per cent of Americans say climate chnage is caused by pollution from humans..

Professor Reser’s research for the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility uses much larger sample sizes and is set up to ask questions in a variety of ways and to allow for greater uncertainty. Reser finds some 83 per cent of Australians have the science about right - climate change is happening and humans and natural cycles play a role.

Only a tiny percentage – about eight per cent or less depending on the criteria – could be considered genuine climate science deniers. Only about four per cent of people refused to accept climate change existed regardless of any cause.

“Social science based survey findings show consistently that the majority of Americans, British and Australians accept climate change is happening and they accept the science and they are concerned. And yes, there are seven to 10 per cent of people who are very dismissive.”

Professor Iain Walker is a research leader at the Government-funded research agency CSIRO which has twice surveyed 5000 Australians on their views about climate change and their acceptance of the science.

In those surveys, where people could choose from four statements about climate change and its causes, about 40 per cent of Australians accept climate change but say the causes are natural. Half say it’s largely caused by humans.

The discrepancy between this survey and Professor Reser’s is most likely down to the methodology, how the questions are framed, how people interpret the words “climate change” and how in the CSIRO study, only four options were given with a yes or no answer.

Prof Walker says when you look across the most substantive surveys around the world and in Australia “the vast majority of people accept it's happening and humans are involved to some extent or another.”

A study co-authored by Walker and published in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at how accurate people’s own estimates of the views of the rest of the community were.

The research found only about five per cent of people thought climate change was not happening. But when this group was asked how many people in the population shared that view, they estimated about half. People also greatly overestimated how many people they thought didn’t know about the causes of climate change.

People who say climate change is driven by human activity tended to underestimate slightly how many people in the community thought the same.

The implications of this are obvious. Sceptics are more confident in speaking out because they think they belong to a sizeable group. People who accept the science think they might be outnumbered if they speak out when the evidence strongly suggests they belong to the majority.

Prof Walker says: “The media representation of the climate change debate is one way you can explain why it is that people so grossly overestimate the proportion of contrarians in the population.”

So why, if the media are doing such a bad job of correctly reflecting the public’s view, aren’t there more sceptics? The answer could be that people lend much more credibility to scientists than they do to the media and government.

In Reser’s research, respondents were asked to grade from one to six how much they trusted (six being “completely” and 1 being “not at all” ) scientists, the media and government as sources of information on environmental issues – not on climate change alone.

Some 53 per cent of people gave a score of five or six to the scientists – indicating a high level of trust. On the same measure, the Government rated poorly with just 9.4 per cent of people. The media scored a disastrous 5.1 per cent. A poll in the UK by Carbon Brief also found people there had high levels of trust in scientists.

“The media has low credibility with the public” says Reser. “But around the world, the vast majority of scientists – say 97 per cent or more – are worried and accept that climate change is happening. I think the public is aware of that fact.”

Even the pitiful amount of pro coverage amongst a sea of denialism the MSM gives climate change, gets denier devotees enraged and has them howling that ALL the stories are pro climate change science. Such is their level of indoctrination by vested interests to have them lobby on their behalf.

If the deniers on this site and on various various we all frequent are anything to go by. Polling of them would show trust in right wing MSM 100%. Trust in scientists other than denier scientists….0.0001%.

“only special people like me can see through these conspiracies.” a guy said to me quite proudly. Personally, LOLing as I did is probably not helping. For many of these people its a matter of mental illness. I have found that pointing out these beliefs to others has changed the way those people are viewed. (I'm not the only one snorting derisively.)

Then sealed the deal, with high level irrefutable evidence that trumps any peer review…..another you tube video on the NWO and how oil and climate change etc is linked to them, as well as everything else you could imagine.

I laughed and felt sorry for the guy, but he was enraged and screamed at me more that it's all there! Pictures don't lie! It's in the video!

*slaps forehead*.

What do you do?! No evidence, explanation or convincing would change his mind. A proud product of the MSM. These people vote! We have compulsory voting here in Oz.

Great job Murdoch and Alex Jones….great job.

By the way, talking about the IPA in Grahams story, they had a birthday bash recently in which many of the major shareholders of the MSM in our country attended, including Murdoch and Rhinehart and even our future Prime Minister ( if the polls here are anything to go by).

1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don't replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.

2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change

3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund

6 Repeal the renewable energy target

10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol

Interestingly, also on the list are things like :

“72 Privatise the CSIRO”

So that naturally, scientific research cannot be independent, be based on facts and can say whatever the plutocrats want them to say.

And

“50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function”

51 Privatise SBS

The ABC and SBS are the only non privately owned centrist sources of news in Australia. Where as everything else is owned by conservatives. Naturally they don't want alternative “facts”. They want a one stop shop for the “truth”.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.

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